Faculty Members' Experiences of Cyberbullying by Students at One Canadian University: Impact and Recommendations

Abstract

This two-phase mixed methods study adopted online survey and individual interview questions to explore faculty members' experiences of cyberbullying by students at one Canadian university. Foucault's (1994) power relations theory was used to explore the power dynamic that can exist in the student-faculty relationship. The study found that cyberbullied faculty members were commonly female, over 40 years of age, English-speaking Canadian citizens, and held fulltime rank. Cyberbullying occurred namely via email, end-of-term faculty evaluation sites, and public polling sites (e.g. Ratemyprofessor.com), while students' dissatisfaction with grades was the most common precursor. Consistent with prior bullying and cyberbullying literature, this study also found that cyberbullied faculty members experienced detrimental effects, persisting from a few days to more than one year. The under-researched focus of this study advances existing workplace bullying and cyberbullying research by illuminating both the harmful implications of student-to-faculty cyberbullying, and the support measures deemed necessary by targeted individuals.

Is it Resolved? One Story of Academic Contrapower Harassment and Cyberbullying

“…Student-on-faculty harassment is a form "academic contrapower harassment" (ACPH), which "occurs when someone with seemingly less power in an educational setting [e.g., a student] harasses someone more powerful [e.g., a professor]" (Lampman, Crew, Lowery, & Tompkins, 2016, p. 169). Studies demonstrate that faculty members across genders are harassed by students, through a variety of means, and for a variety of reasons (Blizard, 2016;Lampman, 2012;Lampman et al, 2016;MacLennan, 2002). For example, Blizard's (2016) study of one Canadian university found that student-on-faculty cyberbullying mainly, but not exclusively, stems from students' dissatisfaction with their grades.…”

“…Studies demonstrate that faculty members across genders are harassed by students, through a variety of means, and for a variety of reasons (Blizard, 2016;Lampman, 2012;Lampman et al, 2016;MacLennan, 2002). For example, Blizard's (2016) study of one Canadian university found that student-on-faculty cyberbullying mainly, but not exclusively, stems from students' dissatisfaction with their grades. Although some research explores contrapower harassment and bullying, including its negative impacts on faculty members, public attention and university resources largely address noncontrapower forms of harassment, such as faculty-on-student harassment and faculty-on faculty harassment.…”

“…Such lack of familiarity with online harassment and social media activity illuminated the need for my institution to develop policies and procedures for regulating, investigating, and managing student-on-faculty cyber-bullying. In my experience, the university's paucity of up-to-date information about how online modalities can shape students' malevolent access to each other and to professors made an already onerous situation even more challenging (see Blizard, 2016). Without such information, I was mostly left to address the social media dynamics on my own.…”

“…DeSouza (2011) also found that faculty who had experienced ACPH reported worse job-related outcomes (including job stress, satisfaction, and turnover intent) than nonharassed faculty, although he did not find gender to be a predictor of such negative outcomes. Blizard (2016) speculates that, given its documented long-term negative effects, student-on-faculty cyberbullying can be harmful enough to precipitate post-traumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder. While I hope professors' mental health is a sufficient reason to put ACPH on any university's or college's radar, another impact of such behaviour is the compromised functioning of the institution itself.…”

Exploring Myths: Cyberbullying of College Faculty

“…Live-streaming these conversations could result in embarrassment, loss of dignity, as well as emotional and social isolation that could affect faculty mental health and overall psychological well-being (Kolowich & Quintana, 2017). Although research findings (Blizard, 2016;Eskey & Roehrich, 2015) indicated that the number of college faculty reporting cyberbullying is small, it could be argued that cyberbullying of college faculty is not a myth. Forbes Magazine used data from an ARS to rank U.S. colleges and universities (Bleske-Rechek & Michels, 2010).…”